a) Field of the Invention
The invention is directed to an electrical plug-in connection and, more particularly, a plug-in connection having at least two plug parts to be coupled, each plug part having a plug housing with a contact element carrier.
b) Background Art
Plug-in connections are required for the mechanical, and accordingly electrical, serving of electrical signal or power transmission lines at a desired location. An electrical plug-in connection therefore includes devices for the mechanical connection of two elements, known as coupling plugs and coupling sockets, as well as means for producing and serving electrical contact. Plug-in connectors are therefore conventionally constructed in such a way that insulating bodies are arranged as contact carries in a mechanical housing which preferably comprises metal but can also be manufactured from plastic. The mechanical housings serve to protect these contact carriers on the one hand and produce the mechanical connection of the plug halves on the other hand. These plug halves can be freely connected with cables or lines and serve to lengthen the cable or--in the majority of cases--a plug which is freely mounted on a cable is plugged into a fixedly installed socket on the apparatus side.
As a rule, it is desirable or necessary that this mechanical connection be effected in a positive-locking manner and it should be possible to disconnect this positive-locking engagement quickly by means of a suitable arrangement. Thus, a locking mechanism will be present. In the simplest case the latter is a union nut, also known as a Hollaender, which is arranged over the housing of the free plug and engages in a suitably arranged screw thread at the counter-plug. Another widely used variant has a spring pawl mechanism in which a spring-loaded pawl engages with a ratchet in a corresponding undercut (recess) of the counter-plug and can be detached (unlocked) by means of pressing on a button arranged on the pawl.
A common characteristic of all these mechanisms is that they include a plurality of structural component parts and accordingly cannot be produced inexpensively and, above all, require a construction of considerable size so that the plug is either unnecessarily large or the space needed for electrical contacts is done away with. Yet modern electronics with its progressive miniaturization requires reliable plug-in connectors of the smallest possible construction. Miniature microphones or the numerous miniature sensors used for monitoring machines and plants come to mind in this context.